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What Whistleblowers Tell Us About Vaccine Safety and Effectiveness

Pro-Vaccine Fundamentalists Targeting Anyone Questioning Safety

Many other whistleblowers have stuck their necks out in recent years, revealing widespread corruption in medical science—among researchers, drug companies, and government agencies. Many have also revealed that these agencies, organizations, and companies are not above using mafia-like tactics to maintain the status quo. For example, whistleblower Ronald Kavanagh was a drug reviewer for the FDA in the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research from 1998 to 2008.

In a 2012 interview, he revealed how the FDA bypassed or ignored safety issues on major drugs approved during his employment. He also gave several examples of how he was intimidated by the agency, to the point of fearing for his life and the safety of his children.

While many refuse to believe a government agency or a pharmaceutical company or special interest groups connected with government and industry would resort to such extreme measures, history, and the experiences of many whistleblowers tells a different story. Fundamentalists and big pharma shills are now targeting everyone who disagrees with the vaccine agenda. NVIC is one target.12 And, recently, a State Farm insurance company television ad that featured comedian Rob Schneider ,who has publicly defended parental rights and informed consent to vaccination, was dropped by State Farm after a group of cyber bullies targeted Schneider for making pro- vaccine choice statements. According to MSN:13

“[I]t wasn’t the content of the ad that created a problem for State Farm, it was the social media response focusing on Schneider’s anti-vaccine stance. The company said the problem is that the ad became a platform for a discussion unrelated to the products and services provided by State Farm.”

As reported by Jon Rappaport,14 the orchestrated social media campaign to pressure State Farm to remove the ad in which Schneider played a comic role included the creation of an attack video in which it was noted that: “State Farm provides health insurance, and nothing ensures public health more than getting vaccinated. It is time to end the anti-vaccination movement; with your help, we can elicit change.” Schneider rebutted with a quote from George Washington, saying: “If the Freedom of Speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”

If pro-forced vaccination proponents consider those who defend the ethical principle of informed consent to be anti-vaccine, and they say it’s time to “end” anyone who questions the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, then that sounds an awful lot like a now familiar threat from a major vaccine manufacturer—Merck, which had a hit list of doctors who criticized the deadly drug Vioxx. The hit list came to light in 2009, following testimony in an Australian Vioxx class action case. As reported by CBS15 at the time:

“Merck emails from 1999 showed company execs complaining about doctors who disliked using Vioxx. One email said: We may need to seek them out and destroy them where they live…”

Health care workers are definitely on the hit list of those who would force everyone to get vaccinated – no questions asked and no exceptions. In 2012, Missouri health care workers were threatened with corrective action for refusing the flu vaccine and were told they’d be ineligible for pay raises. Last year, eight nurses in Indiana were fired for not complying with the hospital’s new mandatory annual flu shot rule, announced in September 2012. This despite mounting evidence showing that the flu vaccine is not an effective way to prevent contracting and spreading the flu. One nurses’ union is now fighting back. According to the Daily Hampshire Gazette:16

“The nurses’ union at one of Boston’s major teaching hospitals has sued to block a policy that would require nurses to get flu shots… Brigham and Women’s mandated vaccinations because its worker vaccination rate of 77 percent is far lower than the city’s other teaching hospitals. Efforts to boost the rate, including free shots available around the clock, have fallen short… The union, which represents 3,200 Brigham and Women’s nurses, said in the suit that the hospital’s yet-to-be-implemented mandate, which could lead to termination of employees who refuse vaccination, violates a state regulation that bars hospitals from requiring employees to receive a vaccine.”

Protect Your Right to Informed Consent and Defend Vaccine Exemptions

With all the uncertainty surrounding the safety and efficacy of vaccines, it’s critical to protect your right to make independent health choices and exercise voluntary informed consent to vaccination. It is urgent that everyone in America stand up and fight to protect and expand vaccine informed consent protections in state public health and employment laws. The best way to do this is to get personally involved with your state legislators and educating the leaders in your community.

THINK GLOBALLY, ACT LOCALLY.

National vaccine policy recommendations are made at the federal level but vaccine laws are made at the state level. It is at the state level where your action to protect your vaccine choice rights can have the greatest impact. It is critical for EVERYONE to get involved now in standing up for the legal right to make voluntary vaccine choices in America because those choices are being threatened by lobbyists representing drug companies, medical trade associations and public health officials, who are trying to persuade legislators to strip all vaccine exemptions from public health laws.

Signing up for NVIC’s free Advocacy Portal at www.NVICAdvocacy.org gives you immediate, easy access to your own state legislators on your Smart Phone or computer so you can make your voice heard. You will be kept up-to-date on the latest state bills threatening your vaccine choice rights and get practical, useful information to help you become an effective vaccine choice advocate in your own community. Also, when national vaccine issues come up, you will have the up-to-date information and call to action items you need at your fingertips..

So please, as your first step, sign up for the NVIC Advocacy Portal.

Share Your Story with the Media and People You Know

If you or a family member has suffered a serious vaccine reaction, injury or death, please talk about it. If we don’t share information and experiences with each other, everybody feels alone and afraid to speak up. Write a letter to the editor if you have a different perspective on a vaccine story that appears in your local newspaper. Make a call in to a radio talk show that is only presenting one side of the vaccine story.

I must be frank with you; you have to be brave because you might be strongly criticized for daring to talk about the “other side” of the vaccine story. Be prepared for it and have the courage to not back down. Only by sharing our perspective and what we know to be true about vaccination will the public conversation about vaccination open up so people are not afraid to talk about it.

We cannot allow the drug companies and medical trade associations funded by drug companies or public health officials promoting forced use of a growing list of vaccines to dominate the conversation about vaccination. The vaccine injured cannot be swept under the carpet and treated like nothing more than “statistically acceptable collateral damage” of national one-size-fits-all mandatory vaccination policies that put way too many people at risk for injury and death. We shouldn’t be treating people like guinea pigs instead of human beings.

Internet Resources Where You Can Learn More

I encourage you to visit the website of the non-profit charity, the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), at www.NVIC.org:

NVIC Memorial for Vaccine Victims: View descriptions and photos of children and adults, who have suffered vaccine reactions, injuries and deaths. If you or your child experiences an adverse vaccine event, please consider posting and sharing your story here.
If You Vaccinate, Ask 8 Questions: Learn how to recognize vaccine reaction symptoms and prevent vaccine injuries.
Vaccine Freedom Wall: View or post descriptions of harassment and sanctions by doctors, employers, school and health officials for making independent vaccine choices.

Connect with Your Doctor or Find a New One That Will Listen and Care

If your pediatrician or doctor refuses to provide medical care to you or your child unless you agree to get vaccines you don’t want, I strongly encourage you to have the courage to find another doctor. Harassment, intimidation, and refusal of medical care is becoming the modus operandi of the medical establishment in an effort to stop the change in attitude of many parents about vaccinations after they become truly educated about health and vaccination.

However, there is hope.

At least 15 percent of young doctors recently polled admit that they’re starting to adopt a more individualized approach to vaccinations in direct response to the vaccine safety concerns of parents. It is good news that there is a growing number of smart young doctors, who prefer to work as partners with parents in making personalized vaccine decisions for children, including delaying vaccinations or giving children fewer vaccines on the same day or continuing to provide medical care for those families, who decline use of one or more vaccines.

So take the time to locate a doctor, who treats you with compassion and respect and is willing to work with you to do what is right for your child.